Mois : janvier 2018

Louis (Nicolas) Cabat (1812-1893)

“Cabat, a French landscape painter, born at Paris Dec. 24, 1812; studied painting under M. Camille Flers (1802-1868), and visited the most picturesque parts of France. He first exhibited in the « salon » of 1833 some landscapes which the critics pronounced to be too realistic; but he persevered in this style of painting till 1837, and became the founder of a school. From that period till 1848 he only contributed twice to the annual exhibitions (in 1840 and 1841), but since 1848 he has been a regular contributor. M. Cabat was elected a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1867, and unanimously chosen Director, in Nov., 1878, of the French School of Painting at Rome.” (Thompson Cooper, Men of the Time, 1884)

When director of the Villa, a young artist, Henri Lucien Doucet (1856-1895), sent a piece considered too bold (scene of Harem) which entailed the non-renewal of Cabat at the head of the Villa.

Cabat is considered a self-educated artist like his friend of early days, Charles Jacque. “Charles Jacque had first been introduced to these Old Masters early in his career (he was 17 years old in 1830) when Louis Cabat, then a young porcelain painter who lived next door to Jacque (passage Saint-Antoine), took him to the Bibliothèque Nationale where they looked at prints by or after the work of Poussin, Lorrain, Dürer, and Rembrandt.” (Rehs Gallery)

An independant character, she build her artistic life in then virgin directions, long before public surveys of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) , but was invited for dinner at the White House in March 1934 to show and report to the President and Mrs Roosevelt her work together with her companion John Jacob Niles.

Before she passed away in August 1934, she wrote her will in favor of institutions, communities and companions, for the great concern of her wealthy family who accepted nevertheless to negociate a fair agreement.

Eternal return, also known as eternal recurrence, is a concept that the universe and all existence and energy has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time or space. The concept is found in ancient philosophy and was subsequently taken up by the Pythagoreans and Stoics (see Heraclitus).

Eternal Return of Collecting,

« According to Nietzsche the eternal return is in no sense a thought of the identical but rather a thought of synthesis, a thought of the absolutely different. — It is not the ‘same’ or the ‘one’ which comes back in the eternal return but return is itself the one which ought to belong to diversity and to that which differs.

The “List of collectables” article on English wikipedia is a pleasant reading, we shoud add an old Greek quote: “If you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trail.” (Heraclitus)

In 1882, the task was proven to be impossible, as a consequence of the Lindemann–Weierstrass theorem which proves that pi (π) is a transcendental, rather than an algebraic irrational number; that is, it is not the root of any polynomial with rational coefficients. Approximate squaring to any given non-perfect accuracy, in contrast, is possible in a finite number of steps, since there are rational numbers arbitrarily close to π.

178 years ago, the invention of photography opened the way to create images and also to reproduce art, giving access to the multitude, promoting the frame of a market. Photography also gave more and more freedom to the artists, allowing pictorial documentation and proof of ephemeral installations.

A modest 2018 New Year address (Tribute to the 1863 Gettysburg Address)

Eight scores and eighteen years ago our fathers brought forth on this world, a new invention, patiently conceived on several occasions and in several locations, and dedicated to the proposition that all men can create images.

Now we are engaged in a great technological revolution, testing whether those archives on metal and paper or any archive so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

We have reached a great battlefield of that revolution.

We have come to a situation where libraries and museums, many, will soon close or deaccess their collections soon after they have been digitally preserved.

For many in charge, it is altogether fitting and proper that they should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not control—we can not organize—we can not understand—the consequences of that dematerialization of our culture.

The brave artists and curators, living and dead, who struggled here, have created this grand legacy, far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored creators we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these pictures shall not have been created in vain —that this material baggage, shall have a future — and that the cultural heritage of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.